HD DVD format off to an early grave
The HD DVD format won’t last the week, apparently. The Wall Street Journal’s web site broke the story and several other news organizations have advanced it.
Format creator Toshiba says no decision has been made to surrender, but spokeswoman Jodi Sally told the Hollywood Reporter that, “Given the market developments in the past month, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.”
Toshiba subsidizes the price of HD DVD players, which have undercut Blu-ray machines at retail.
Wal-mart dumped HD DVD on Friday, days after Best Buy and Netflix left the format to die. The HD DVD collapse began in January, when Warner Bros. decided to go Blu-ray only — just days before CES.
In the end, the inboard Blu-ray player in Sony’s PlayStation 3 units proved the deciding factor. Outboard HD DVD players were available for the Xbox 360 machines, but they were cheap and nasty.
Quality was a more or less a tie between the warring formats, with HD DVD getting the nod in price and reliability.
New Apple TV is on the air
Apple TV boxes with the new and hopefully greatly improved software are in the stores.
An “Inside Apple” newsletter emailed out in the middle of the night announced the availability. Apple customers are invited to test drive the new software at a retail outlet.
As expected, the new features include rental of movies and TV shows directly from the TV-connected box, some in high definition with 5.1 surround.
Apple TV
Steve Jobs told MacWorld the updates would be available in mid-January, but the company later announced a delay. Analysts have been debating the new Apple TV software’s merits sight unseen, until now.
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Writers get their online video share
Hollywood’s writers have won a piece of action in the coming boom for movies and TV shows online. Assuming there is a boom.
Their union early Saturday secured a percentage deal for revenues from online distribution of TV shows and films, starting in the third and final year of a new contract. For years 1 and 2, writers will get $1,200-plus as a flat fee for Internet runs of a one-hour TV show.
The 2% share of revenue is seen as a guarantee writers will share in any spike in online revenues for the networks and studios. That share may not mean be all that rich in three years, but it will set a starting point for future contract negotiations. (Writers felt they’d been screwed when they failed to see DVDs as the video medium of choice.)
Writers also fear that network use of reruns will fade as current and catalog shows are being routinely uploaded for free viewing, cutting off residuals.
The flat residual rate for online video had been agreed upon earlier in the year, but the writers prolonged the strike seeking the percentage. (Directors accepted the flat residuals.) Early Saturday, the deal was made.
The networks and producers argued, with some justification, that the economic model for making money online hasn’t been found, and the costs of getting online distribution to work fall to them alone.
Writers have to ratify the deal — a no-brainer given the misery index here in L.A. — and could be back at work as early as Wednesday, guild officials said.
Also under the deal, movies and TV shows sold online — such as those on the iTunes Store — will provide a doubled residual rate for the writers compared with DVDs.
The Writers Guild of America also won jurisdiction over bigger-budget Internet programming.
The guild told its members, “It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. We believe that continuing to strike now will not bring sufficient gains to outweigh the potential risks and that the time has come to accept this contract and settle the strike.”
My pal Bill Braunstein recently weighed in on the reality and animation writers‘ situation over on Write for Blogs.
Hulu scores with Super Bowl ads
No problem that the Super Bowl ads were so-so this year, the game was an instant classic. We’ll be watching that Eli Manning escape and miracle catch forever.
Manning was my fantasy league QB last fall, making it two Super Bowls in a row that my team’s quarterbacks made it into the biggest game. And they all laughed on draft day. (You care, right?)
Hulu, continuing to show off its high-quality widescreen video player, posted all of the Super Bowl ads. You don’t have to be a beta user to view them, but why not sign up while you’re sucking down the bandwidth. (Come to think of it, they all laughed at Hulu, too.)
My pal Howie over at the Spud, a sports media blog, just posted streaming video of his favorites. Here are mine: